This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jeff Malone: Welcome to Half Hour with Jeff and Richie, the podcast where we explore the latest shows we see, sharing our insights and opinions on the performance of storylines and everything in between.

[0:08] Richie Grasso: In today's episode, we're discussing the Broadway production of Dead Outlaw playing at the Long Acre Theater in New York City.

[0:13] Jeff Malone: Whether you cannot catch the show in person or want to expand your thoughts after seeing it, this episode is for you.

[0:18] Richie Grasso: And as always, we want to inform you that this episode will contain spoilers.

[0:22] Jeff Malone: So if you're ready to dive into this production, stick around with us.

[0:24] Jeff Malone: I'm Jeff.

[0:25] Richie Grasso: And I'm Richie.

[0:26] Jeff Malone: We're thrilled to be your hosts for this episode.

[0:27] Richie Grasso: But before we start the conversation about Dead Outlaw, here are a few words from our advertisers.

[0:32] Jeff Malone: Welcome everyone to a new episode of Half Hour with Jeff and Richie.

[0:35] Richie Grasso: Today we're discussing Dead Outlaw.

[0:36] Jeff Malone: Dead Outlaw is the darkly hilarious and wildly inventive musical about the bizarre true story of outlaw turned corpse turned celebrity Elmer McCurdy.

[0:44] Richie Grasso: As Elmer's body finds even more outlandish adventures and death than it could have ever hoped for in life, the show explores fame, failure, and the meaning or utter meaninglessness of legacy.

[0:54] Jeff Malone: Dying is no reason to stop living life to its fullest.

[0:58] Richie Grasso: All right, Broadway hot take for Dead Outlaw. We saw this downtown, and I loved it.

[1:04] Jeff Malone: And now it's on Broadway, and I feel like I love it just as much because I think that this is the show that is the most bizarre within the season and makes you think the most, and you leave there really wanting to live life to the fullest.

[1:23] Richie Grasso: I would agree that I loved this so much downtown, and I would actually disagree with you liking it just as much on Broadway as me because I liked it more on Broadway.

[1:32] Jeff Malone: I did love this even more. There was not much changed from the downtown to the uptown, but this is one of my favorite shows of the season.

[1:40] Richie Grasso: It is very strong. It is telling a story in an ingenious way. It came together so nice. I want to go back and see it. It's a strong contender for me for many Tony Awards. I really, really enjoy this show so much.

[1:53] Jeff Malone: Let's get into it.

[1:54] Richie Grasso: All right. So I think what's interesting about this is when you talk about some overall thoughts on the plot and concept and score. Here's, you know, it says in the playbook conceived by David Yazbek. I always tell people before you go that remember that this is a true story.

[2:04] Jeff Malone: Remember that this is true. And if you can remember that from the beginning in the middle and the end, all the way through, you'll be more fascinated by this. And you won't say, Oh, this is musical theater, oh, it's a play.

[2:18] Richie Grasso: Right. This is a true story about a real man and his legacy from all throughout many, many, many, many years until he was finally laid to rest. And how do you musicalize that? How do you tell that story with so many different locations? We didn't put a full orchestra together. We didn't have video projections of different locations.

[2:36] Jeff Malone: We told it in a really theatrical, almost our tow-y way, where we had some tables and chairs and an orchestra that was literally central to the stage and to the plot.

[2:46] Richie Grasso: And when I say orchestra, I mean band. It's a folk score. David Yazbek always writes so different. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is so jazz. Tootsie was very jazz, but Bands Visit is very different. And even the Full Monty is very different.

[3:02] Jeff Malone: So this was just a really smart way to say, I want to tell this story. I want to put a good team together, and I want to tell people, yeah, this is a true story of an American who died in this way, and his body was brought here, here, here.

[3:15] Richie Grasso: Do I think that that would ever happen in today's day and age? I'm not really sure. Because I feel like with technology, I think eventually people would have realized what this is. But if the person of this TV show didn't realize that that was a dead body hanging in an amusement park attraction for so many years and realize that that was a bone and that this is a real human body, it's fascinating to me.

[3:37] Jeff Malone: It's fascinating, and it's why I kind of say it's so bizarre. Because, and it's really why it's the theater that I kind of love because it's so different. Yeah, there's so much space on Broadway for like the big splashy numbers, which we love and adore too. But there's something that's a little bit more raw and real about something like this because it was a true story, and they turned it into this Broadway production that has some sort of a heart that makes you think that really takes you and says, What is the true meaning of life?

[4:10] Richie Grasso: What have you accomplished in your life? What do you do after your life? And who remembers you after your life? Like when you really sit with that and you think about those four topics and then watch this show, I think you have a different point of view.

[4:25] Jeff Malone: I also think it's interesting when you listen to the lyrics, they're singing about death and living and being seen and being heard. There's a lot of that I picked up the second time seeing this from the downtown, where the opening number, he's looking at the stars. There's this sense of living.

[4:40] Richie Grasso: You go through this whole piece saying, Oh, this is really sad. Oh, this is really funny, oh, that's really poignant, oh, that's disturbing. Oh, there's so many emotions that you feel that you forget in a way that this is a human being. And I think by him being in the casket, you know, as the actor, seen by the audience for so much of the second half of the show, makes you remember that this is a human being's body.

[5:04] Jeff Malone: Right. That was, you know, a lot of religions look at the way a human being leaves dies and leaves Earth. Some religions say you must bury a body right away. Some say no, you can mourn the body, and then the body goes in the ground or gets cremated. There's so many different ways that people have philosophies of how a body gets returned to the earth.

[5:23] Richie Grasso: This body, the soul and this body was never returned to a resting place. And it was so nice that at the very, very end, spoiler alert, you find out that these people of this community in Oklahoma put him in the ground, very far into the ground, covered in cement, so no one can disturb him again. That was so heartwarming to me. That was how that ended in that way.

[5:43] Jeff Malone: Right. But even in the beginning of this, the book of this musical here, you know, we see and we meet Elmer, and he's this, you know, troubled, misunderstood person. And immediately you're kind of put in the crossroads of like, do you feel bad for him, or do you like think that this is deserved?

[6:07] Richie Grasso: And when you remember this, we're talking about the soul and the spirit of this man, right? Because the body just ends up becoming property, which is even more bizarre. But like this soul and the spirit, and like does he watch what happens in his life after he leaves that body after he's killed, and then like that's when you actually start feeling bad for this body.

[6:30] Jeff Malone: And I think it's nice that you leave the audience, the director and the creative team have left the audience to say here, how do you feel? Don't tell me how to feel, just look at this bizarre story and say, because there were parts where I was like, This is really sad. I have moments where I'm like, this is just very sad. And then there's parts where like laughing, the parts when he's in the closet for 20 years.

[6:51] Richie Grasso: I remember downtown, we sat in silence, and it was so this on Broadway was like people were laughing, and then it got silent. And then there was nervous laughter, and then there was silence. I think that's I would think exactly what the creative team and the director wanted was I think so we're watching this body sit in a closet for 20 years. It's kind of funny because he's just there as the actor sitting there in the light.

[7:10] Jeff Malone: Yeah. But it's also like, whoa, this is 20 years. And I would love to know how long that stage manager is holding that silence until that door opens and they come into the closet again. Because it's probably only one to two minutes, but it feels like you it feels like 20 minutes, 20 years that you're standing there just wondering this body is sitting for 20 years in this closet.

[7:30] Richie Grasso: So sad.

[7:31] Jeff Malone: Yeah, it's sad. And I think with this too, it has such great storytelling. We're the first to complain about narrators on Broadway. I think every time there's a narrator, we always have to bring it up because we are either love it or we hate it.

[7:46] Richie Grasso: And with this one, this is one that really gets the narration right because they're involved and they become a character within this musical, you know.

[7:58] Jeff Malone: And I think what they do really well with this score as well is they take what you think the sound would be at that time. Not the sound that you would hear on the radio or what's playing in clubs and whatnot, because there was no radio at that time.

[8:16] Richie Grasso: But um, I think the sound of what a dead outlaw really captures.

[8:23] Jeff Malone: Yes, it definitely incorporates that. And I think the narrator playing the instruments and singing and being part of the music telling of this that Jeb is playing as the narrator here, that's what makes sense. I kind of don't like when a narrator just walks on, talks to the audience, and walks off, and just that's what we get.

[8:38] Richie Grasso: Right. This was an inclusive conclusion. He also played a character in the plot.

[8:41] Jeff Malone: Right. So there was a lot of that story. This is theater. To me, this is theater 101 in the best way, hitting all the boxes. You have inclusion of an ensemble playing multiple characters. You didn't need 30 people playing 30 different characters. There wasn't a million different costumes. There was just enough costumes to tell the story. Props were needed, but not overly used.

[9:00] Richie Grasso: Moving the orchestra to set different locales was really smart, not just burying the orchestra below, no pun intended, below the stage. But I think it was also lit so well where you had shadows where you needed shadows. You didn't quite see everyone's face when you didn't need to, but then you saw clear characters when you needed to. It was so fleshed out the whole process.

[9:21] Jeff Malone: So let's get into this production a little bit more. Um, we're gonna take a quick break, but when we get back, we're gonna talk about the direction, the active performances and design, and how we feel that this transferred to the Broadway stage.

[9:32] Richie Grasso: All right, and we're back. So let's kind of talk a little bit more about like what really worked downtown and how maybe it transferred to the Broadway stage in this production.

[9:40] Jeff Malone: Because it was basically, I think everyone was the same creative team that moved from downtown to for the most part, right?

[9:46] Richie Grasso: And I think that I think that the creative team is very strong here. I think David Cromer's direction is some of the strongest direction we're seeing in terms of storytelling. This is very, very strong.

[9:56] Jeff Malone: I think the creative team of the designers, this is another example of a show that I've said here before on the podcast, where a team has come together to tell a story. And it's not an ego of a lighting designer or an ego over costume designer. It's people coming together and saying, We're gonna tell this shell of a theater story. We're not gonna fill it with bells and whistles of all this move, you know, heavy scenery and heavy projection.

[10:19] Richie Grasso: And it was just tell the story through a style of music that would have been at the time, that twang country sound. But then you had like a jazz number at the end. We had some fun moments where that they knew how to have fun with each other.

[10:32] Jeff Malone: Well, that's what I love so much about like how they wrote this, because the first half of the musical is written how they think it would sound, and then the second half of the musical, I think they really bring in their musical theater technique and they bring it into those numbers.

[10:48] Richie Grasso: You know, after he dies, what does the sound like sound now?

[10:52] Jeff Malone: Yeah. And it was important to also say like if we're talking about Dead Outlaw, with most of it talking about his death, it was nice that Andrew had singing and moments throughout the first half of the show where he could tell his story.

[11:02] Richie Grasso: The one thing we were talking about on our last podcast about Floyd Collins is you really never got to know who Floyd Collins was before he was trapped down there. But in this Dead Outlaw, we got the first 30 minutes of the show, we got to know Andrew Durand playing Elmer McCurdy and this character and where he went, what train he took, who he met, and who identified who and where how the body got. It was nice, but it was told quick. It's not a three-hour show.

[11:25] Jeff Malone: You know, we're talking about less than two hours or telling this whole story.

[11:28] Richie Grasso: Right, and it helps you really connect now with that character. I also, in terms of designers, you know, it's scenic design by Arnulfo Maldonado, really, really smart. Sarah Lowe was costume design, Heather Gilbert's lighting design, Kai Harada's sound design, all and J.J. Rajani's hair wig and makeup design here. So all the designers really, really stood out to me. I really enjoyed all that.

[11:46] Jeff Malone: I agree with that. I think like even the transferring, so like this is my big thing that I always get nervous. Like you see something off Broadway, we love it. You're with this big theater community, well, not huge theater community off Broadway, but you're with the real passionate theater lovers when you're off Broadway.

[12:05] Richie Grasso: So we're in this space, it's small, it's intimate, it works.

[12:09] Jeff Malone: Now we're moving to a bigger Broadway stage. You're in a house that is tough.

[12:16] Richie Grasso: And I think that just taking what they did and moving it to the Broadway stage was probably the right thing to do.

[12:23] Jeff Malone: I mean, if there was one call out that I would have made, it would have been like that real musical theater number at the end, like make it over the top. But other than that, I found like just transferring it the way that it was and not trying to fix it and overthinking it is better.

[12:39] Richie Grasso: Totally. It didn't, it needed just slight heightened moments here and there. Maybe they had to make some things a little bigger to fill a bigger stage or what have you. But yes, it was just, it doesn't, you know.

[12:49] Jeff Malone: If someone's saying, well, this is a new musical, there's no big production numbers, there's no big scenery. That doesn't always need to be for a new musical. When you look at Chorus Line, there's just people standing on a stage telling a story, and that's brilliant and ingenious. We don't always need the flashy flashy. This had just enough of what it did.

[13:05] Richie Grasso: Totally. And what I'm finding it like super interesting now is hearing the kind of mixed feedback from people after they see it. Because obviously we went and we saw it and we loved it, we praised it, and we told everyone to see it if they could, and now we're still going around telling everyone to see it if they could.

[13:22] Jeff Malone: But some people never telling to see it, and they're seeing it, and they're kind of like, Oh, yeah, it was fine.

[13:26] Richie Grasso: And I'm like, wait, did you not get the whole message of what's happening here about like what is the point of living life?

[13:34] Jeff Malone: And like also like we all die.

[13:37] Richie Grasso: And when they that's that song they're saying, your mama's dead, your daddy's dead, and so are you. You know, they're saying like we all die one day. How and when and where we don't quite know, but this is it was just bringing light, a little bit of lightness to the topic of death, which is so interesting.

[13:53] Jeff Malone: Our spirit and soul leaves the body, though.

[13:57] Richie Grasso: And I think that's what's so interesting about this piece because his body remained, and his body remained for a hundred years, traveling almost a hundred years.

[14:10] Jeff Malone: And like no one kind of cared. I mean, it's also social commentary on society. How did society never notice this or care?

[14:18] Richie Grasso: Right.

[14:18] Jeff Malone: How did no one care that you know roadshows and sideshows of the time were not with big high tech? It was like wax museums, it was like circus shows. People were obsessed with the oddities. So no one really thought to care. Like, this is a human body, and we should really preserve this and respect this. It's like, no, put them in a road show. It was bizarre.

[14:37] Richie Grasso: Right.

[14:37] Jeff Malone: How no one really respected him. And I think it talks more about like media in general. Media was not big when he died. And people were more fascinated when they overheard something.

[14:50] Richie Grasso: Yeah.

[14:51] Jeff Malone: So, like going to the sideshow or going to the circus or going to the amusement park or going like all of those things existed for you to go see these crazy bizarre things.

[15:00] Richie Grasso: Right, right, right.

[15:01] Jeff Malone: And so, I mean, I would do want to talk about some of the actor performances here. We could totally talk about Andrew, Jeb, and Julia in the next segment because they're the Tony nominees, and I want to talk about them in a second.

[15:10] Richie Grasso: But I think a Dashell Eves, Eddie Cooper, Ken Marks, Trent Saunders, and Tom Cesma are just really carrying some wonderful ensemble work here. They all get singing moments, they all got acting moments, they get features.

[15:22] Jeff Malone: I love when they grab the mic and join the band. Like now we're gonna just like take a second from the plot and make this feel like a concert.

[15:29] Richie Grasso: And that is a concept that I thought, and then be like, oh, is this gonna work? And it totally does because the band is just there.

[15:36] Jeff Malone: I love that they're not using a wireless mic and they're using that wire all over the stage. We're reminded that we're gonna tell this like story, and we're just gonna get with the band and tell it with them. That's a cool vibe.

[15:46] Richie Grasso: But didn't you feel like a choice here around like the direction and directing them all? There was meaning behind putting them in that box when they got to that mic and sang their song.

[15:59] Jeff Malone: There was meaning because it had to do with them in that moment. Especially with Tom Sesma's jazzy number when the microphone's hanging there that he's giving the audio notes as the coroner, and then he makes it this jazzy number, and he's even singing like and even in that number, which is like an 11 o'clock number kind of feel.

[16:15] Richie Grasso: We have this like jazzy hilarious when we're in a coroner is talking about dead people.

[16:19] Jeff Malone: He's referring to like Natalie Wood's death in the music. They're talking about famous people dying, and we're like, oh my god, this is like wild.

[16:27] Richie Grasso: Right.

[16:27] Jeff Malone: And I think like, but that's their moment.

[16:29] Richie Grasso: Yeah.

[16:30] Jeff Malone: To tell their story.

[16:31] Richie Grasso: Yeah.

[16:32] Jeff Malone: And what did they do in their life before they died? You know, I think each one really gets to have that moment where they say, like, what did they do? You know, when Trent Saunders character, when he's playing the runner, that was his moment for him to really embody that because then they all play different roles throughout the piece.

[16:53] Richie Grasso: But this was his moment to tell that story of like running and how was it connected to Elmer in a certain way, you know, like that he was there when he's running this race.

[17:05] Jeff Malone: Right. You know, one might say, Oh, it had nothing to do with it, but maybe it had everything to do with it.

[17:09] Richie Grasso: Right, right, right.

[17:10] Jeff Malone: And even Eddie Cooper, like Eddie Cooper's playing the original coroner, it when the body comes in, and like that song, first of all, is such a bop.

[17:22] Richie Grasso: Yeah, there's some great songs.

[17:23] Jeff Malone: It's such a chorus, you know.

[17:25] Richie Grasso: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[17:27] Jeff Malone: But he, you know, he has to figure this out and turn this into something that's now making him money.

[17:35] Richie Grasso: It's so funny though that like it becomes about being a business.

[17:41] Jeff Malone: Yeah, dying is a business, yeah, right.

[17:44] Richie Grasso: And what's happening? Buying a coffin, getting buried, having a church service, all of it is a business. Financial burdens for families too.

[17:51] Jeff Malone: And when he had no family to claim him because he was so far away from home and no one came to claim it. There were laws. There are laws that not a friend can't claim a body, a neighbor can't, you know, unless that's written in a will or something. You have your family are the only ones that can come claim you.

[18:05] Richie Grasso: And when that never happened, that's when this started to unravel.

[18:08] Jeff Malone: Right, because they were like, well, we need to pay our bills. You know, it costs us money to figure out how he died and what happened. But because no one came to claim, you're like, all right, well, I think now we're gonna make some money off of this because people were like weirdly fascinated by a mummy.

[18:23] Richie Grasso: Not to mention, like when I always say like every story deserves to be on Broadway, like this is an American story. It hasn't been if it if this let's say this story ended in the 70s when that like burial happened, and you can actually go to I think it's Oklahoma to see the gravesite burial of where he was buried.

[18:40] Jeff Malone: Like it's you know, I don't I I that we haven't talked about the story since the 70s, right? Maybe unless it's come up in articles or things.

[18:44] Richie Grasso: So someone like David Yazbek took this idea and let's say let's go with it. It would also be very interesting to see, like, was this actually a big story when it happened?

[18:55] Jeff Malone: Like, did people who there were newspaper articles, there were news reports.

[18:58] Richie Grasso: Right, but like, did people were they fascinated about hearing it? Or were they like, oh, this is weird moving on? I don't know.

[19:03] Jeff Malone: But I think years later we can look at it and we can say, you know, what was on Broadway in the 60s and 70s? Not a show like this, so maybe that's why this could have been a documentary on HBO or something, and it wasn't. It was a musical, and that's it's such so cool.

[19:17] Richie Grasso: So I know we want to kind of go into some of our experiences at the show and some of these Tony nominations that it received. So let's kind of go over there and talk about that. We'll take a quick break and we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

[19:27] Jeff Malone: Okay, so Tony talk. Dead Outlaw has received seven Tony nominations. Gonna read them all here now. Congratulations.

[19:34] Richie Grasso: Yes.

[19:35] Jeff Malone: It did receive a best musical nomination. It received a best book of a musical nomination for Etar Moses. Best original score, music and lyrics by David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna. Best Performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical for Andrew Durand. Best performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical for Jeb Brown. Best performance by an actress in a featured role in a musical for Julia Knitel, and Best Direction of a Musical for David Cromer.

[19:59] Richie Grasso: To me, all deserving, all make complete sense. I'm very impressed with all those nominations.

[20:05] Jeff Malone: Very I was very happy about them. You know, at first I was getting nervous again because this is like one of the last slots to open.

[20:13] Richie Grasso: No stars in it.

[20:14] Jeff Malone: No stars. We're going off of word of mouth from when it was off Broadway. So, you know, it built a fan base. It was also coming in right now at the same time as Just in Time and Real Women Have Curves. So, like one of those, or maybe all three of those were gonna do well on the Tony's.

[20:30] Richie Grasso: This is the show that did well in the Tony nomination.

[20:33] Jeff Malone: Yeah, Dead Outlaw. So I think, you know, Andrew, it was expected on my watch that he was going to be nominated. He's really great in the role. He carries it, he's a star in this, and he knows how to carry a show.

[20:48] Richie Grasso: Yeah, I was very happy to see Jeb Brown get nominated as well because I thought, like, yeah, I he's who we're listening to most of the show. I love how he like gets really into the mic and tells the story in silence.

[21:00] Jeff Malone: That's but that's like narrator stuff. That's how you would sit around a campfire and tell a story when someone would say, and then 20 years went by. It was it was impressive.

[21:08] Richie Grasso: Right.

[21:09] Jeff Malone: It was very impressive, and he becomes a character in the plot of 1.2. And I think like this one really shocked me, but I was so happy because when we left, we were like Julia Knitel. I said, Um, is she gonna be nominated? Because she has some great moments in this piece.

[21:24] Richie Grasso: She plays a few characters and she has a few songs, and she's got poised to her.

[21:29] Jeff Malone: She's on that stage so eloquently and so beautiful, and she carries herself, and I'm like, you're just really captivating in this role.

[21:36] Richie Grasso: There's a lot of other supporting roles for females right now, and I'm like, okay, that's kind of throwaway, or that's not great. Julia's owning what she's doing up there. She's very impressive.

[21:44] Jeff Malone: When she sings "Stranger," I think that solidified her Tony Lock for me because I was like, Oh, she's giving this. She has to come in here, and she sees the man that she was in love with who just up and ran out of here, and she can't do anything.

[22:04] Richie Grasso: They didn't get married, they weren't family.

[22:07] Jeff Malone: He ran away, he dies. This is the next time you see the person that you loved is dead. And then she sings this song because she never knew who he truly was. She thought she did, but she didn't.

[22:20] Richie Grasso: And that was like probably the first moment when I really realized the whole process of going over to that microphone when it was your turn to tell your story.

[22:28] Jeff Malone: Yeah, it was her turn to say, like, this man is a stranger to me. I don't know him anymore, but I loved him.

[22:35] Richie Grasso: And I think that what while she's a wonderful singer as well, I would love to see Julia next thing be a straight play.

[22:43] Jeff Malone: Yeah.

[22:43] Richie Grasso: Where she plays a really serious role. Because I almost think she could be like an Emily in Our Town or like a leading Shakespearean or a Tennessee Williams lead.

[22:51] Jeff Malone: I just think she's destined to do some really great things in musical theater, too, of course, but I just think her acting is what's really, really strong here, and I really enjoyed her performance.

[23:00] Richie Grasso: Yeah, I don't know if she's going to win, but I'm just happy to see that she was nominated.

[23:05] Jeff Malone: Oh, and it was honored.

[23:06] Richie Grasso: And they honored it. Of course, the book and the score getting nominated. We've talked a lot about that. That's been great. Best musical overall.

[23:11] Jeff Malone: And David Cromer's direction. I think he's one of the best directors we have working on Broadway right now. He has a vision, he takes the vision and works. He's been represented in some other things.

[23:19] Richie Grasso: This yeah, I think he did Goodnight and Good Luck.

[23:21] Jeff Malone: He was not nominated for that, but he's nominated for this, I believe.

[23:24] Richie Grasso: Um, and just really impressive stuff.

[23:27] Jeff Malone: I do say, out of all the design, I wish I'd have gotten the lighting design nomination because I think the lighting design, I'll tell you right now who the lighting designer is. I said it earlier.

[23:35] Richie Grasso: Um, Heather Gilbert to the lighting design.

[23:39] Jeff Malone: I thought what was really impressive about that was the shadowing in the beginning when he was a you in his youth and we couldn't quite see who the mother and the father and the aunt were. Just the way he was lit on the top with the stars.

[23:47] Richie Grasso: I just think there was some nice lighting things that could have been there was a little bit of a snub for lighting design for me.

[23:55] Jeff Malone: Yeah, especially because I feel like that had a concept.

[24:00] Richie Grasso: Yeah.

[24:00] Jeff Malone: It wasn't just put lights on. Starting the show off dark showed him being dark inside.

[24:08] Richie Grasso: And also giving us the setting.

[24:10] Jeff Malone: Yeah.

[24:11] Richie Grasso: It really gave us this whole idea of like we're in a dark time. I mean, it's a time that most of us don't know or understand.

[24:20] Jeff Malone: And let's do this.

[24:21] Richie Grasso: And then bring the lighting in later, you know, bring when he starts coming to life and when everyone else's stories start coming out.

[24:30] Jeff Malone: Like there was really this whole lighting motif going on.

[24:33] Richie Grasso: Totally.

[24:34] Jeff Malone: Especially when they were watching Andrew as the body for 20 years in the closet, and then this wall opens and this light pours in as if he would we were sitting in the dark for so long.

[24:43] Richie Grasso: That's a lighting design choice, like the tomb being opened.

[24:46] Jeff Malone: It was very biblical in that way, you know.

[24:48] Richie Grasso: So there was just a lot of there was a lot of good stuff happening here.

[24:51] Jeff Malone: Smart stuff.

[24:52] Richie Grasso: And then in terms of like own experience at the show, like this was gonna be one of those moments for me that I really had to start figuring out like if people were gonna get this as much as you and I get this show.

[25:05] Jeff Malone: And I feel like they do.

[25:08] Richie Grasso: It's uncomfortable theater though.

[25:10] Jeff Malone: Yes, and people then leave Uncomfortable Theater and say, Oh, that was nice. I think I liked it, I'm not really sure. And they don't know how to respond.

[25:15] Richie Grasso: I don't I haven't heard anybody hating this. I've heard a lot of people saying, like, oh, that's cool, different, but I think you have to, yeah, you have to sometimes get uncomfortable with uncomfortable theater and realize you Jeff, you could have left laughed and laughed the whole time.

[25:29] Jeff Malone: I could have not laughed the whole time.

[25:31] Richie Grasso: But that's okay because I think this piece allowed for you to say, we're not laughing at this person. We're laughing about the absurdity of the American social system of weighing that ways that this body was taken across the country like this.

[25:46] Jeff Malone: That's what's bizarre.

[25:47] Richie Grasso: Right.

[25:48] Jeff Malone: And that there was a peace at the end, that the resting peace was the way we ended this. And it was just really, really smart.

[25:54] Richie Grasso: Right.

[25:55] Jeff Malone: And if you can have that takeaway, I feel like, yeah.

[25:57] Richie Grasso: And I think like if you go back to the laughing portion of it, yeah.

[26:02] Jeff Malone: Well, you hear people laughing because you know they're uncomfortable in that moment.

[26:07] Richie Grasso: You're like, there's no way he was left in the closet for 20 years.

[26:10] Jeff Malone: Yeah, yeah.

[26:12] Richie Grasso: But maybe he was.

[26:13] Jeff Malone: Okay.

[26:14] Richie Grasso: I guess we're gonna laugh about that now.

[26:16] Jeff Malone: Right.

[26:16] Richie Grasso: Right.

[26:17] Jeff Malone: And I hope this has I hope this gives does well with ticket sales. I hope this picks up an audience and the Tony nominations help.

[26:24] Richie Grasso: And they're gonna have a performance slot on their Tony Awards now, which will be great.

[26:26] Jeff Malone: So what do you want to see in that slot?

[26:28] Richie Grasso: I think the dead song is really cool. I almost wonder if they could do a mashup because there's so many nice moments musically that it can maybe do two or three numbers at some point to showcase Andrew a little bit too.

[26:39] Jeff Malone: Um Jeb's showcase a lot, but yeah.

[26:41] Richie Grasso: Yeah, I mean I I think it would be smart for them to do that and then maybe do like a couple clips from each each person's like moment.

[26:51] Jeff Malone: So we'll see what happens there.

[26:53] Richie Grasso: Oh my gosh, just about out of time. What are your final thoughts on Dead Outlaw on Broadway?

[26:57] Jeff Malone: This is one of those shows I'm gonna tell you, you better get to see it because big, big fan of Dead Outlaw. I'll need to keep going back. I just love how much it makes you really think about life and what happens after and what you're supposed to do during.

[27:13] Richie Grasso: Yes, I totally agree. It just puts your life into perspective seeing a story like this that's not a famous politician, a famous movie star, a famous singer.

[27:22] Jeff Malone: It's like just a famous mummy.

[27:23] Richie Grasso: It's just a famous mummy, but and and it I would love to hear what people's elevator pitches of this. It's like, what's Dead Outlaw about? Well, it's actually about this guy that was dead, but it's gotta be cool to talk about it.

[27:35] Jeff Malone: So go see this. It's original, it's very concept-y and it's fun and it's sad, and it's all the emotions, and it's working.

[27:42] Richie Grasso: And it's and the Tony Committee is seeing that it's working and it's new and it's original. It's not based on a movie.

[27:47] Jeff Malone: It's it's based on a real person and it's a true story, but giving light to that story.

[27:52] Richie Grasso: Right. Fascinating stuff.

[27:54] Jeff Malone: Well, that does wrap up our discussion of the episode. We hope you enjoyed our deep dive into Dead Outlaw on Broadway. Remember, we want to hear from you.

[28:01] Richie Grasso: Continue the conversation with us on Instagram and TikTok at Half Hour Podcast.

[28:05] Jeff Malone: And drop us a comment on Spotify and let us know your thoughts on Dead Outlaw.

[28:08] Richie Grasso: Please also leave us a review. Your reviews mean so much to us. Remember, you can listen to our past episodes and stay tuned for the many upcoming ones as well.

[28:15] Jeff Malone: Until next time, I'm Jeff.

[28:16] Richie Grasso: And I'm Richie saying ta-ta for now.

[28:18] Jeff Malone: Bye.